When Hosea Hand, otherwise and generally Ho Ha, learned through a visit from Lucius Brown that $12,000 had been left him by a cousin he was astounded, happy, and perplexed. For some time he did nothing but treat his friends and acquaintances. He bought Mermaid countless ice cream sodas and Mr. Brown countless cigars, and various others a considerable number of drinks (always taking a cigar himself). Occasionally he got confused in his happiness, as when he asked Mermaid to have a cigar and Lawyer Brown whether he wanted lemon or orange phosphate. His perplexity arose over the cousin whose beneficiary he had so unexpectedly become. Mr. Brown seemed unable to make this end of the wonder suitably clear.

“A fourth or fifth cousin, Hosea,” said the lawyer,[137] carelessly, over the substitute for the phosphate. “She—he—they—I mean, it—was someone you never knew. She—they—had a lot of money. Remembered all the relatives.”

“Well, father and mother both came of large families,” observed Ho Ha. “I must have had a couple dozen cousins. I can’t remember who was fourth and who was fifth among ’em. I don’t know—would you think I might show my appreciation by putting up a nice tombstone to this cousin?”

“Good Lord, certainly not! I mean—I’m sure there will be a suitable memorial,” replied Mr. Brown, slightly choking over the near-phosphate as his mind imaged a tall shaft in honour of Keturah Smiley.

“What was the name?” asked Ho Ha.

“Ke——” began the lawyer, thoughtlessly, caught himself in time, and changed the syllable to the similitude of a sneeze. “Ke-chew! Ke-chew!” He sneezed again, as though an encore might confer verisimilitude. Ho Ha did not appear to suspect the sneeze.

“I s’pose that cussed brother of mine got a share,” Ho Ha meditated aloud. “The wonder is he didn’t get mine, too.”

Mermaid mixed her drinks recklessly, following a pineapple ice cream soda with a raspberry. It was before the day of the more fanciful concoctions or Mermaid would have had a week of sundaes.

“What are you going to do, Uncle Ho?” she inquired[138] with the interest that, from a young woman, is always so flattering to a man, even an uncle.

“Oh, I guess I’ll build a little shack on the beach and put the rest in the bank,” Ho Ha told her.

“I didn’t mean what are you going to do with the money, but what are you going to do with yourself?”

Hosea twinkled. “P’raps I’ll marry,” he hinted. “Now if I was only a young man——” He looked at her roguishly.

“It’s never too late to marry,” Mermaid said, between spoonfuls. “But if you’re going to marry you won’t want a shack on the beach—or your wife won’t, which amounts to the same thing.”

Ho Ha nodded repeatedly. “I don’t want to marry the first woman that proposes to me,” he announced with his most sagacious air. “I might advertise, eh?”

They strolled down the street together until they reached Keturah Smiley’s. Mermaid commanded her uncle to enter. Keturah was making a batch of cookies in the kitchen.

“Come in, Hosea,” she said, cordially. “Child, if Dickie Hand comes here this evening, do for goodness’ sake make the boy eat yesterday’s crullers so we can have a taste of these cookies ourselves. I declare, Hosea, I don’t know what my own cake tastes like any longer.”

“I do,” said Ho Ha, looking at her attentively.

[139]“Have one,” said Keturah, slightly flustered by the look he gave her. Could he have learned anything? Ho Ha fell silent a moment, and then after several mouthfuls said: “You were always a great hand for relationships, Keturah. Can you tell me who this cousin was that’s left me some money?”

Miss Smiley faced away from him and began energetically stowing her batch in a cake box.

“I don’t know, Hosea,” she answered. “I never could keep track of your relations.”

“I don’t believe this cousin was a relation,” said Ha Ha. “I never heard of any relations except poor relations. Most likely this was some conscience-stricken person, repenting of evil gains——”

“Nonsense!” exclaimed Miss Smiley with an emphasis and a touch of indignation that seemed unnecessary. “She had as clear a conscience as some others, I guess.”

“Oh, so ’twas a woman?” observed Ho Ha, innocently. “Well, now, that’s funny. I can’t think of any woman——”

“I didn’t say ’twas a woman,” parried Keturah. “She or he or whoever it was probably had more than she—he—knew what to do with. Left to the next of kin. It’s a common thing.”

“Uncommon common,” agreed Ho Ha somewhat paradoxically. “Happens every day. You read about it in the newspapers. I dare say she, he, or it got the[140] idea while lining the pantry shelves with ’em. What’s money for, anyway, Keturah?”

“Money,” interjected Mermaid, “is to make those who haven’t it want it and those who have it want more.”

“Money,” said Miss Smiley, sententiously, “is to hang on to until you know when to let go.”

“Money,” Ho Ha framed his own definition, “is only to make some other things more valuable.”

“You’re right, Uncle Ho,” Mermaid conceded. “If Dickie Hand’s father—your brother—didn’t have as much money as he has, Dickie would be worth almost nothing to me.”

“Child!” Keturah rebuked her.

“Oh, Aunt Keturah, I don’t mean that I value Dickie for his father’s money,” explained Mermaid, impatiently, “but don’t you see if his father were poor Dickie would be so—so unmanageable. I shouldn’t be able to do a thing with him! But his father’s rather rich, even if he did lose a lot of money a while ago, and I can just make Dickie behave himself by telling him that he can’t possibly get any credit for what he makes of himself because there’s all that money to help him. That makes Dickie simply wild, and he says he’ll be somebody in spite of his father and his money. He gets almost desperate—which is quite necessary,” she added, thoughtfully. “The other day he said, ‘Damn my father’s money! I’ll show you it hasn’t anything to[141] do with me!’ Of course I gave him the—the dickens but I couldn’t help being rather pleased.”

Miss Smiley regarded Mermaid with great sternness, but Ho Ha’s shoulders seemed to move queerly. Finally he choked.

“If my cooking chokes you, Hosea, you’d better not eat it,” Keturah said with considerable dignity.

“I beg your pardon, Keturah,” was the humble reply.

Mermaid had been eyeing the two as if a surprising notion had just occurred to her. Now she slipped on a jacket and started to leave the house, “I have to see Dickie,”............